After a hunt that lasted 24 years, the CBI on Friday, 5 January, arrested Mushtaq Ahmed, one of the main accused in the 1993 bombing of RSS' Chennai headquarters in which 11 people were killed.
Ahmed, who had eluded the CBI for 24 years, was arrested on Friday morning from the outskirts of Chennai, CBI spokesperson Abhishek Dayal said in New Delhi.
The blast, which happened on 8 August 1993, was triggered using RDX. It brought down the multi-storeyed RSS office at Chetput in Chennai.
Ahmed had allegedly procured the explosive material for assembling the bomb and provided shelter to the other accused, officials said. The agency had announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh for providing credible information about Ahmed.
The CBI was entrusted with the probe in 1993. It had filed a chargesheet against 18 people under stringent provisions of the Indian Penal Code, Explosive Substances Act and Terrorist and Destructive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA).
After a 12-year trial, in 2007, a TADA court in Chennai had convicted 11 people and awarded life term to three.
The agency continued its hunt for Ahmed – who did not face trial as he could not be arrested – right through.
After the trial in 2007, the special court acquitted four persons, including S A Basha, founder of the banned Al Umma, for lack of evidence against them.
Immam Ali, a suspected ISI agent who had escaped from custody in Madurai, was gunned down in Bangalore in an encounter with the police on 29 September 2002.
Another accused, Jihad Committee founder Palani Baba, was hacked to death by suspected RSS sympathisers on 28 January 1997.
Of the 431 witnesses, 224 were examined during the course of the trial which commenced on 7 August 1995. The chargesheet was filed on 8 June 1994.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)